


The White Room

by TheLongRoadHome



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: AU with a happy ending, Alternate Universe, Gladnis, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Bad At Summaries, Imperial Ignis, Lots of Backtalk, Lots of plot, M/M, MT!Prompto, Magic, No Ardyn, Painful but pleasurable, Promptis - Freeform, Psychological Torture, Slow Burn, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Sorry Not Sorry, The Great Escape, The world is a mess, Torture, War, What Have I Done, Whump, lovers in a dangerous time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-11-23 11:54:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11401905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLongRoadHome/pseuds/TheLongRoadHome
Summary: The Starscourge was taken down by Ardyn Lucis Caelum, and in its place, some thousand years in the future, a new war emerges of Niflheim's creation. Insomnia is the last free Kingdom in Eos, and its Prince and the Prince's shield have been captured by the enemy.Noctis' and Gladio's lives hang in the balance. It is escape or die - but with an unfamiliar MT guide and 'Operative Scientia' contending with their journey to freedom, the struggle will be hard won, and making allies harder still. Unfortunately for Prompto and Ignis, lives that are touched by the hands of fate are rarely let go afterwards, and hands that are touched by Lucian royalty are let go even rarer still.





	1. Unfit for Purpose

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this little brain worm niggling at me for so long that it just had to be written. This story is an AU that assumes several things:
> 
> -Ardyn died disposing of the starscourge the correct way and there is still an heir to the Lucian line. The crystal still exists, as does the connection between it and the Lucii.  
> \- The four kingdoms have been plagued by war of Niflheim’s creation.  
> \- Accordo and Tenebrae both fell around twenty years ago (a bit earlier than in the game), along with half of Lucis. The last bastion of Lucian hope lies in insomnia, and all the citizens who escaped persecution in Accordo, Tenebrae and Lucis have taken refuge there. King Regis upholds the wall but his strength is fading. 
> 
> And with that, I hope you enjoy!

 

 

Prompto wheeled the mop bucket through the darkening hall, taking care to stay to one side out of the way of the marching troopers. He kept his head low, studying the smooth concrete passing below his tatty shoes. The alarms had been going off in the building for half an hour now, and Prompto was already running late with his duties. Whatever had gone wrong, it must have been important. Nobody, not even a Magitek Trooper, had come along and quoted ‘Code 15: Unfit for purpose’, before dragging him off to a discipline chamber. Something big was happening for them to ignore him like that.

It must have been an event of some significance. The MTs and staff carried guns – the kind that Prompto hated – the shock kind, I.T-108’s, that made your eyeballs want to pop out and made you pull all your muscles simultaneously before you’d even hit the floor. They wouldn’t kill a man, but they’d make him come close. He had been ordered to use one, once, and when he didn’t, or couldn’t – whichever was true – they had finished his task for him and then turned his weapon on him instead.

He hurried to Meeting Room 125B, corrected the misaligned chairs and tried to avert his gaze every time another squad of bots walked past. The floor didn’t need mopping, but he did it anyway just so he was seen to be completing his tasks.

Nobody seemed to care today. Being a ghost was preferable.

He finished the room and replaced the mop back in it’s bucket, fighting with the door on the way out. The corridor had gone quiet, but for a distinct clomp of synchronized footsteps.

A Magitek Force walked down the hall that joined onto his corridor, armored legs clicking like spiders. Another sound came – a low hum and a scraping that seemed at odds with the perfect unison with which feet clacked on concrete. He hid in the darkness of his corridor.

The troopers dragged something. Four in formation at the middle of their ranks, clutching a pole that held a chain, extending to the middle of the square, the chain attached to a body. Its feet drew limp, rubbery, black lines along the floor, it’s head hung low to its chest and its dark hair and walking machines obscuring its face.

It looked up – _he_ looked up – painstakingly slowly. Prompto couldn’t see well, but for the barest moment he could have sworn that the man’s eyes glowed a forlorn red. For the barest heartbeat, he was looking into fire, and then the man blinked away the haze and it was gone.

There was blood too. Prompto didn’t know from where, but he could hear it fall. The man in chains moaned, low and breathy, and a bark was uttered – a commander.

“Keep the Rat Prince unconscious!”  
  
The guns pointed, and Prompto averted his eyes, squeezing them shut against the mop handle. His corridor filled with light and there was a scream – a wild ripping shriek – and the human noises stopped. He didn’t open them again until the drum of footsteps and that adrift dragging noise were far beyond his hearing it. The sparks from the guns were etched into his retinas, even through the shield of his eyelids.

Silence echoed along the hallway.  
  
Prompto tried not to rush away. He pushed the bucket down into the fortress’ concrete stomach and into a service elevator. The dark down here was refreshing. The facility corridors were all clean from his work yesterday nobody really came down here to check anyways. Trying to wipe the lightning lingering in his periphery, he ascended to his last cleaning spot of the day. Undoubtedly his favorite one. Reality felt disjointed and unfamiliar.

The elevator opened up on the 6th floor. The commanders referred to it as the Guest Quarters. They all knew it was nothing more than a prison that just happened to look fancy – at least fancier than the cells in the basement levels, anyway. The corridor was well lit, and he’d been told once that it looked like a hotel, rather than part of a military base. Hotels supposedly appeared welcoming, though he had never known one personally. He cleaned the first three empty rooms, though they had lain vacant so long and were cleaned so regularly that they didn’t really need anything doing to them. Each room had a pleasant tile floor, a well made four poster bed with privacy curtains, and an elegant table and chairs. The bathroom off to the side was well equipped and opulent, in a sort of hollow, meaningless way.

The fourth door, labeled ‘Asset T02-LFNF,’ was locked. He knocked politely as he’s been told to, and waited. There came a familiar knock back, and he held his wrist to the chip reader and let himself in.

The room itself was much the same as all the others, though this one had a wardrobe and a few bare living essentials.

“Hello, Lady Luna.” He bowed upon entering. She stood behind the door as always.

“Prompto, come in.” She gave him a soft smile and closed the door behind him. “You really can just call me Luna.”

She said it every time, but if nothing else, Gralea instilled in him the hierarchy of power, and even if she held none, in his eyes at least she was more than worthy of a title. As always, she was in a dress robe and white shoes, and Prompto knew that these were much like her current living space – nicer versions of what the prisoners down below had. Despite not getting many visitors, she still did her hair nicely – plaits wrapped over and the ponytail appropriately wavy. She’d told him once that it was how her mother used to wear hers and that the style was important to her.

“How has work been today?” She stood, pleasantly.

“It’s been a good day, thank you Lady Luna. There’s lots going on so everyone has left me alone.” Prompto couldn’t help but smile at her, wringing out the head of his mop in preparation for cleaning. He wondered idly if everyone from Tenebrae glowed with light like she did. Red eyes flashed into his memory. “Though, it looks like we might have captured someone important this time.”

Luna cocked her head to the side in a silent question. They had talked often, and Prompto had told her that he wasn’t supposed to speak to her, let alone give her information, so she never asked. Prompto told her everything out of his own free will – what little of his life there was to tell, that is – and she in turn told him stories. Stories of Tenebrae, of the outside world, of sunsets and wildlife and things called Bees that he’d never seen before. He often tried to do his cleaning round faster because it meant he had a little more time to spend in Lady Lunafreya’s company, cleaning her room and listening to her gentle voice. It was always the highlight of his day, alongside showing her photos he’d taken of the bugs he found in the courtyard on the camera he’d rescued from the trash.  

“Well, they had a guided MT procession, and they had a prisoner. The commander said he was a prince? I haven’t seen them that jumpy in a long time. Not since they bought Nyx Ulric in.”

Luna went still. Prompto didn’t understand why, but in his nervousness he kept on talking. 

“His eyes glowed. I’ve only ever seen MT’s do that.” 

Although she was gentle, she seized his arm, “Prompto, you must tell me, what did he look like?” her voice was hushed but harsh, as though she feared the answer. It was the first time she had ever pressed him for information, but Prompto gave it anyway. 

“Dark hair, shaggy, kind of? Glowing eyes…uhhh, what else? Oh! He was wearing black – haven’t seen that before.” Prompto regarded her hand and she seemed to shake without noticing him. “They…called him the Rat Prince? L-Lady Luna? You look sick…Lady Luna? Are you okay--?” 

Luna seemed to crumple. She leant up against the wall and held onto the doorframe.

“Lady Luna? L-Luna? What’s wrong? Are you Ok? Do you want me to get the doctor?”

“N-no, no Prompto. It’s just…” She was crying. Prompto had only ever seen others crying from fear, but Luna’s face was wet with something greater than selfish fear. She cried with the weight of lives that were not hers.

He didn’t know what to do. He dropped his mop and immediately bowed before her.

“I’m so sorry! I don’t know what I’ve done, please forgive me! I didn’t mean to--”

Luna bent double, as if not hearing him, clutching her shoulders and chest – sobbing and keening. “Noctis, you can’t be here!”

Prompto was speechless.

Even he, who had spent his whole life in the confines of the fortress knew that name. Everyone in the world must know that name.

“N-Noctis?” He gulped. “As in Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum? That Noctis?” She seemed to cry harder at the name, breath in strangled gasps.

The very same Noctis who Lady Luna had been betrothed to? The one he’d heard all her stories about? The one who hated vegetables and loved animals and didn’t like all the attention to be on him?

Prompto took her gently by the arm, unsure of what else to do, shakily guiding her over to the bed and placing a cup of water to the side when she was firmly seated. He knelt at her feet, having never seen anyone cry so honestly before, and unable to comprehend the vastness of the situation.

She gazed at him and wrapped her arms around his neck, hot, breathless tears seeping into his shoulder. His uniform would have a wet patch and he was already half an hour late for cleaning the basement levels, but he couldn’t have cared less.

“Prompto, if he’s here-- _they’ll kill him_.”

He couldn’t comprehend the enormity of The Prince of Lucis’ capture. Surely it ended the war? Surely the Emperor could be satisfied? If that was so, then didn’t it mean that they had no use for Lady Luna as political leverage? The Thought made him shudder in revulsion, and the lightning etched into his retinas seemed to pulse like a heartbeat. “Well, i-it might not be him!!…I could be wrong! It could be another Prince, right?!” He squeaked, probably right into her ear from the way they were sat. “It is possible, _right_?”

Luna drew away from him and shook her head. She couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Why would they kill him? I thought they wanted him alive? Maybe he’ll be bought up here and you’ll be able to see him?”

She shook her head again, trying to regain control of her breathing. “N-no, they want him alive so they can get information. How the connection to the crystal works. And if they have Noctis then…Lucis has likely fallen.”

Prompto had heard about the crystal and Lucis, and this time not from Lady Luna, which meant that they were a coveted item indeed. He didn’t understand magic, but if it was something innate to the Prince, then—

“They’ll experiment on him.” Prompto stated it, rather than asked. “They’ll kill him slowly.”

Luna squeezed her eyes shut and fell still. Her lips were thin and fraught.

Prompto stared up at her. The MT’s could have shot her and he didn’t think she’d look so in pain as she did now.

“What if…what if I get you a picture of him? We don’t know for sure it’s definitely him, right?” Prompto said, desperate to find some way to help keep that look from her face.

“I can’t ask you to do that.” She breathed. “What if you get caught?”

He shrugged. He supposed it didn’t really matter anyway. He was ‘unfit for purpose’ after all.

 

* * *

 

 

The basement levels were teeming with MT’s, every thirty feet of corridor stood two guards each with their harsh looking weapons. All of them asked to scan his chip as he went by.

As the steps to the Reformatory wore away, Prompto was filled with dread. Niflheim was well known for its utilitarian protocols, his generals had told him. They would not waste this much effort on containing someone unimportant. For Luna to have cried in the way she did, this Prince Noctis might have well held all the answers in the universe. He was sure he demanded this sort of guard in consideration of that fact alone.

A part of him panicked, his lungs seizing episodically as he made his procession. At what point did his intervention become foolhardy? Supposing, of course, that he had not already past that point simply thought his conversations with Luna. He held no love for the generals or the MTs that prowled the halls, but here everything had a place, even he, a poor failed experiment. Whatever wisps of something more that these prisoners tempted him with, were they truly greater than what he gripped onto here? The freckles on the backs of his arms itched nervously.

Wasn’t this a sort of betrayal? He owed his existence to Niflheim, and owed nothing to the foreigners. He felt the weight of the camera in his back pocket and silently willed himself to walk straight, even as his feet were leaden.

The Reformatory was the brightest lit space in the fortress – sterile white light projected down in ordered beams. The walls, floors and ceilings all bleached the same colour. It seemed washed of life, and he was the only living thing in its halls.

The cells that lined the walls were glass boxes, like display cabinets. All had been purged of their inhabitants.

Prompto swallowed, stomach quivering.

There was blood on the floor, and since he was dragging a mop and it was protocol, he cleaned. The MTs did not block his path, merely staring through him with red eyes.

He worked his way down the hall, the door lock allowing him access only after it had confirmed his identity in triplicate. The bangle around his wrist felt heavier than normal. He hid it under his sleeve.

The Exclusion Chamber opened. It was darker than the hall before it, yet more focused, like looking into a magnifying glass under the sun. The void here too had a glass wall dividing up the room, like a viewing platform abutting a smaller specimen case. The glass was the dark kind that implied that people this side could see in, but on the other side they were trapped in a box with black walls. Beyond the barrier and secured to a table, suspended at 45 degrees, was the dark haired man, now chains extended over his chest and his shoulders were pinched so close together that Prompto had to wonder how he could breathe. The blood was coming from his shoulder, falling in lazy splats, and a single tail of chain led off behind the chair.

The commander turned to inspect him as he entered and Prompto looked down before anguish could cross his features or he got disciplined. Loqi eyed him with scorn, but he bowed deeply and cleaned a patch of blood off the floor, pretending not to notice the derision. He was hyper aware that he shouldn’t have been in the room, but the commander didn’t push the idea, and Prompto didn’t draw attention to it either. Loqi’s distaste for the dirt of commoners was well known, and he supposed it extended to the blood of foreign Princes too.  

The Prince was breathing at least – his chest rising and falling what little it could under the squeeze of the chains. There was a machine that plugged into his arm, a needle that made him feel faint to look at sticking out at right angles from a vein in the elbow, and it beeped happily. His lips looked chapped and burned, almost, and his eyes were no longer open.

Prompto cleaned, watching the guards from his periphery. They were waiting for something – the few of them that weren’t made of metal. Every few minutes one of them would look to the door.

Prompto was nearing the glass front, and whilst he knelt to scrub what he made out to be a particularly stubborn bloodstain, he snuck his camera from his back pocket, wrapped in a cloth, switching it on with one hand whilst scouring with the other. He took a picture of the inside of the glass box as he stood up from the floor, making it look as though he was replacing the cloths back in his boiler suit. The picture would be blurry, but he couldn’t give himself away. Nobody seemed to notice, so he fiddled with his pocket a moment too long and took another picture.

“Hey! Get on with it!” Loqi yelled in his direction, making him jump and hurriedly stuff the camera back into his pocket, wrapped in a dust cloth.

He finished cleaning the outside of the cell just as the door to the Exclusion Chamber opened. 

Prompto had developed a habit that had saved him many times. He was able to recognize shoes, and who they belonged to, without ever needing to meet anyone’s eyes. This time it was different. There were no visible shoes – only a long white robe, hemmed luxuriously in flecks of red and gold. Prompto’s mind screamed in mad panic.

Loqi and his subordinates had been waiting for the Emperor himself.

Prompto bowed, as low as he possibly could, trying to make his mop and bucket look as small and tidy as possible. He wanted to melt into the floor, before the white robed figure could smell his treason and eat him whole.

He heard the distinct swish and step of the Emperor’s procession moving in front of the glass. He tried to still his shallow breathing. There was a rolling sound too, and even after the march had ceased, the rolling continued, past the door of the glass barrier and into the chamber. Prompto remained bowed over, but from this angle he could observe better without being reprimanded. They had pushed in a screen, the kind of wafer thin thing they used in the office spaces.

It was switched on, linked up, and it flared to life, a white square hovering directly in front of the Prince. Loqi walked in. He knew the walk well – it was the walk of someone who not only knew their purpose, but reveled in it. Prompto wasn’t sure he wanted to see what came next. Loqi stood behind the table, gleefully.

“Have the Nexus-probe samples been taken?” The Emperor’s hushed, grainy voice asked a man in a white coat next to him.  
  
“Yes, your Eminence.”

“Begin at once.”

The other man bowed and Prompto suppressed the shiver that ran along his back. His nails bit red half moons into the skin of his hands. His mind was pleading, begging, sobbing for him to leave, but his feet stayed rooted as if encased in the concrete itself.

Something was injected into the Prince, and the technicians and medics left. The tannoy system began to pick up the tiny sound of falling blood, and the breath that had been shallow but even, and now came in fluttery inhales.

Out of the corner of his eye, Loqi grinned wolfishly, picking up the tail of the chain that hadn’t had an identifiable use in Prompto’s mind until that moment.

He tugged on it, so hard and with such vicious intent that the air was ripped from Prompto’s lungs too. The Prince woke with a cry as the vice around his chest was made even tighter. He tried to cough, and then to a splutter, which turned into a desperate gasp for something – anything, to enter his lungs again.

“Welcome to Gralea, Prince Noctis. The Emperor himself send his regards.” Prompto stole a look at Aldercapt, and found the man looked bored, at best.

Noctis coughed in response, shuddering against his bed.

Loqi proceeded to ask him questions. Questions about his father, uncomfortable questions, with an edge of sardonic knowledge to them aimed at private sections of the Prince’s life. Then questions about Lucis, about Insomnia. The defenses they had therein. Their ‘scum people’. Noctis seemed to answer all of them with rasping silence, almost like he couldn’t hear Loqi at all.

Prompto wished he hadn’t seen this sort of thing before. He would have said Noctis was doing well, otherwise. Whether he answered or not didn’t matter, Loqi was toying with him.

“ _Your Highness,_ ” Loqi mocked, licking his lips and hissing directly into the Prince’s ear. “would you like to see your Shield again?” Noctis’ rasping stilled, and in the long stretch of quiet, the screen in front of them grew from a white glow to blotches of darker shape, then focused into another chamber, somewhere else in the Fortress.

Prompto winced but could not look away. A man hung from the wall by his wrists, one of which was already broken. He was probably the vastest man Prompto had ever seen, but that wouldn’t help him here. Dark hair fell in waves across his shoulders, and scars lined his chest. Some black thing covered his arms and shoulders like it was caressing his muscles, and moved as he did. Prompto marveled at it for only a scant millisecond, for the Prince moaned in acknowledgement of the individual.

“Gladio—“ Loqi pulled at the chain again and The Prince could not even rasp the rest of the name.

“For every question you do not answer, you friend here receives a lash.” Prompto squeezed his eyes shut. They never showed the whip straight away, but he knew its bite, it’s bladed teeth and loud ‘snick’. The space between his shoulder blades blazed in shame.

“Where is the crystal? How much longer can Regis uphold the barrier?” Loqi asked, ratting the chain and caressing the side of the Prince’s face gleefully.

Noctis breathed shallowly and looked at him, eyes wide and pleading.

“Come now, little Prince, if you can’t even answer the easy questions, how to you expect your friend to survive the night?”

With that, the screen flashed with black and the dark man barked out in pain, a thin bloodied line seared across his abdomen. The Prince trembled and seemed to try to reach for the screen. His mouth kissed the air.  
  
Loqi asked questions still, some so personal that Prompto felt invaded and sick himself. Noctis answered, breathily, desperately, repeating answers sometimes, and watching the screen as the man on the other end was carved into no matter the answers given, each lash had him roaring in pain.

Prompto watched as the Prince began to panic, “Stop! –h--Stop!” Wisps and gasps of breath getting caught in his throat. “—Gladio! Stop! Ple—Please…”

Loqi whispered questions in his ear, slowly, intimately. Noctis’ eyes seemed to take on a purple hue, and the lights around them flickered slightly in recognition. Prompto realized that it didn’t matter what the answers were. They weren’t here for information. Something else was happening.

“Would you like to see him carved open, Prince Noctis?” How would you like to watch an old friend do it? Just for you?”

Panning backwards, the screen revealed a hem of a long white coat, edged in black and swirling patterns. Ravus Nox Fleuret gripped the handle of the whip, knuckles so pale that it looked as though his bones poked through the skin, pinpricks of blood making them look ink stained. The Prince’s face seemed to darken, his mouth loose, and something in the air hummed, low and dangerous. Prompto could have sworn that his breathing stopped all together.

Sparks filled the air – pale and sharp, dangerous little things that seemed to be there and not at the same time – invisible but catching the light in just such a way. Loqi shivered with excitement. Noctis’ eyes were vivid and glowing red, catching as the lights above them dimmed and twitched in their sockets.

Ravus didn’t acknowledge the screen. Did not turn to face it. There was someone there in the room with him behind the camera. They took the whip and Ravus was left staring down at the dark haired man. He seemed disaffected.

Whining came from somewhere in the walls. Noctis did not breathe, red eyes fixed on the screen and slowly leaning toward it, as if somehow exceeding the space allocated to him. Prompto didn’t know when he had crumpled to the floor, but his legs shook and every muscle in his body wanted out of the room, but none of them would move.

Ravus reached for the Dark Warrior’s wrist – broken in its shackle, the fingers were crooked, the bones that held them bent. Noctis didn’t move, but seemed to growl, the hum growing, joined by irate pops and crackles as mirror shards seemed to fizzle in then explode out of existence, filling the air like static.

Ravus bent the pinky finger first, the noise accompanying it similar to crushing a bag of ice. “Gladio” screamed. Prompto retched.

The eyes were so red now. Noctis Lucis Caelum wasn’t human, somewhere between that and a mirror ghast. No noise, no breath, no heartbeat, just a million cracking shards where all those processes should have been. Loqi was dancing in it, laughing as his skin seemed to redden, tiny cuts appearing all over his face. Prompto could comprehend none of it.

Ravus went for a second finger, but this time it was not the man on screen who shrieked. The wind that seemed to hit him came from nowhere, Prompto’s hair flying everywhere, Aldercapt’s gown flicking out as he bent his head against the force and the bursting shards. Noctis seemed to be affected by no wind whatsoever, his head slowly turning to face Loqi as if possessed, everything emanating outwards from him with the defiance of a hurricane.

“Terminate Process!” the Emperor’s voice rode somewhere over the din.

A lever was pressed too late.

The television screen shattered, the glass fell in a waterfall of twinkling shards, and Loqi collapsed, the bottom half of his face missing – in its place a thin cord of muscle and blood, and his forehead embedded with a crown of glass, that seemed to sputter out of reality, leaving gaping holes in the corpse. Noctis lay, eyes open but unconscious. Loqi lay dead, and Prompto lay, quivering in a pile of debris that had fallen from the ceiling, in a separate room that was still slave to the Prince’s terrible power. Noctis terrified him, he had never seen anything quite like it. A sword had been there. Hundreds of swords, swirling infinitely. A ghost? Magic? His mind hurt.

He hugged his bucket and looked up at the MTs. One of them moved, collecting three vials full of _something_ that was not blood or liquid, from Noctis’ arm.

Prompto blanched, for Aldercapt looked at Loqi’s jaw, which had landed bloody at his hem, just the other side of the glass pane, and _smiled_.

The Emperor looked at Prompto, the crevasses in his face appearing for a moment like dark rivers.  
  
“Clean.” He said, and walked out, triumphantly. The MT’s followed.

He looked at the mangled Loqi, and the last contents of his stomach emptied.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When he returned to Luna he was trembling, but inside her room he sobbed, uncontrollably. Despite his affectation, he had taken pictures of it all once alone with the unconscious Prince in the Exclusion Chamber, then cleaned it all up, the body, the broken screen, the blood...the only thing he could not bring himself to touch was the Prince. Luna placed the camera to one side and had stroked his hair until he had managed to calm himself enough to talk again.

“Prince Noctis is terrifying.”

She shook her head sadly.

“No, he is the one that’s terrified. There’s a difference.”

Prompto didn’t understand, shuddering on his knees against the image of a tongue exploding out of a head and red eyes watching so calmly.

She looked through the pictures, and Prompto let her, too exhausted to resist, and too shaken to continue. He was supposed to be somewhere now, but nobody had come looking, and he couldn’t remember much beyond his and Luna’s name, and a room full of gore.

She looked defeated, clutching the camera with white fingertips.

“Luna, there’s something you should know. On the screen – your brother – he was the one hurting that man.”

Luna seemed to shrink from the notion, and she asked what ‘the man’ looked like. Prompto described him in as much detail as he could.

“Gladiolus Amicitia.” Luna seemed to sway as if being pulled and pushed by some unseen force. “Prince Noctis’ shield.”

“He doesn’t need a shield.” Prompto shook.

“Prompto, tell me,” She spoke softly, but not gently. There was a quaver in her voice that Prompto was afraid to hear. “did my brother…did he look like he was being forced?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that.”

He had no reply for her, so stayed quiet.

“Niflheim are baiting Noctis into revealing his powers. Observing his connection to the crystal. They don’t just want it for itself, Prompto. They want to replicate it – imagine – a thousand people all with abilities like Noctis. All with far less compassion and kindness than the Prince has.”

Prompto’s mind darted back to Noctis’ desperate cry for Gladiolus. The empire had done some terrible things, and Noctis had made them pay, but from Aldercapt’s wolfish smile, Loqi’s loss was well within the expected damage margins. Noctis had done nothing but hurt what hurt him – The Emperor wanted to exceed that pain beyond anything he could possibly comprehend.

Still, Prompto imagined the sky raining shards of glass, imagined them puncturing his skin and crawling like ants through him until he was choking with them – until they were coming out his mouth and surging through his eyes and a thousand faces with red irises gazed back, all with dark rivers etched across their skin, and leering from their murky clouds.

“That shouldn’t be allowed.” He whispered, the enormity of it all seeping into his skin.

“I know.” Came the answer. “I was scared too when I first saw Noctis like that. The power of Lucis is difficult. It is intended to defend from things that no-longer exist. Gods and demons that have long left us. It’s a relic from a time long ago, my powers are too, simple though they are. Please believe me when I tell you that Noctis would never use that against someone who didn’t deserve it.”

Prompto agreed that Loqi deserved it, but it made the truth no less intimidating.

He thought of the man with the wide blue eyes, breathlessly begging the grinning man to stop the torture of his friend. He thought of Luna’s words about the Prince who hated vegetables and loved animals and didn’t like all the attention to be on him, and thought of the image of him as he left the Exclusion chamber. A lonely figure on a table, chest offered up to the spotlight, the only dark, visceral thing in a world full of white and glass and cold.

Prompto understood. He would have been petrified too.

He was always scared here. He had lived amongst those in Gralea all his life, as unfit for purpose as ever, but the fear never changed. The constant struggle to see where the next blow would strike. This room was his haven, with Luna, and now the forces outside had butted their way in. It was unignorable and hateful, and Prompto wished he could rip it out the air like the shards of otherworldly glass, and push it away from himself where it could never find them.

“Do you think they’ll ever stop? The Emperor, I mean?”

Luna hung her head. It was enough of an answer for him.

“I had all my hoped pinned on Lucis, and now…” she gulped.

Was it really too late? Prompto scrabbled for an answer.

“But…Loqi! Loqi asked Noctis where the crystal was. If they don’t know then they don’t have it! Right…? That’s something.”

Luna stared at her hands. “Even if it is still safe, King Regis will only be able to hold the Wall for so long. He will tire soon, and without Noctis to take over, Insomnia will fall. It is a small consolation, I am afraid. Unless Noctis can escape then we have little hope.”

“Could we not help?” Prompto asked, resting his head on her bed, crumpled like discarded clothes on her floor.

“I could not ask you for such a thing. It would likely kill us both in the effort.”

“What about your magic? There must be _something.”_

She considered him. “My magic is for healing, and the attendant takes so much of it from me every day that I have so little. I would need a focus of some kind at the very least to be able to help at all. I…I just don’t know how it can be done, and I cannot leave this room.”

Prompto clicked, producing something from his pocket and placing it in her hand gingerly. It was a vial, sealed at one end with a sort of metal linkage at the other, like a magnet. When she turned it, it briefly looked as though tiny crystals were trapped inside, wriggling and moving like ants, but when she turned it father on it’s axis, the effect was gone and it was empty. This was Old Magic, the magic of change and the void. Not the elemental kind and unlike her own light, solitary brand of magic. It was Noctis’s, full of connection and life and death. Prompto watched her eyes fill with softness.

“Did you take this from the chamber? Prompto, thank you.” She swallowed back her emotions and focused.

This was not just the magic of Noctis, but the magic of the crystal, and all those who had been leant its power both alive and dead. Prompto did not know, but what he’d stolen for her was hope itself.

“What are we going to do, Lady Luna?” Prompto said fearfully, feeling the atmosphere around her soar. He was agitated about helping her for his own sake, but the image of Prince Noctis alone and in pain, surrounded by ghastly faces hovered in his mind.

She smiled. “I must first ask you to find Gladiolus. I must ask you to gather information…and…watch out for my brother.”

 

* * *

  

It had been days, and Prompto had discovered two things. First, was that Ravus Nox Fleuret was working for the Empire, though he seemed to have been coerced somehow.

Second, was that there was screaming coming from the Special Operations wing.

He had been lucky – in the Empire’s eagerness to experiment with their new plaything in the Prisons, the guards and disciplinarians had been too focused on the teams that dealt down below to bother with a cleaning rat like him. The other maintenance staff had been pulled off to act as helpers for the mechanics that seemed to flutter to the lower tiers everyday, clearly building _something,_ though Prompto was sure he did not want to find out what. It meant that coming and going was easy, and new faces showing up in old departments was acceptable.

Prompto was still terrified, but now there was a sense of purpose, of curiosity. He could see some blurry shape off in the distance, and the further he walked down the path the more tantalizingly close the concept seemed to get. It was beautiful and soft and beyond his understanding, just out of his reach, but he strained towards it anyway, calling his fear a liar and his mind a coward.

He had heard the screams from Special Operations all morning, having been conveniently transferred by his own orders to clean the halls outside the door. Nobody questioned him, though he still winced every time a commander walked by. They were all too busy it seemed, and Prompto was left well alone.

The screams were not of the same origin; multiple voices at varying distances from the door, judging by the muffledness of some of them. Different rooms altogether, probably. He could not get used to them, and would jump every time the pain echoed down the hall. When he finally plucked up the courage to move into special operations and start cleaning the hall there, he was bitterly disappointed. Supplied with the image of the glass prison downstairs, Prompto had imagined the same thing for Special Operations, but much to his dismay it was a corridor filled only with wide, heavy-looking metal doors. No windows or peepholes to show him where Gladiolus Amicitia was being held.

If he started helping himself into cells to clean he knew he would be disciplined, so he stuck to the corridor, mopping, mind working furiously on something, anything he might do to find the Shield of the Prince.

He was about to give up when the entrance door opened. Prompto averted his gaze to the floor and rolled his mop bucket out the way before the newcomers could walk into it.

It was Ravus, Prompto knew by the shoes, and he stood to attention. The coat was too distinctive, the hair even more so. He was followed closely behind by a bespectacled man, with brown hair and an aura refined like a knife blade and just as cutting. Ravus seemed to be dragging his feet. He stood in front of a door, and glared at the man.

“I refuse.”

“I should not like to see Lunafreya in that man’s position.” The man said simply. It sounded like a casual observation one might make about the weather, but there was such threat behind it. 

“It’s _Lady_ Lunafreya to you.”

“My apologies. We are running late, please complete your task.”

Ravus grit his teeth and the other man showed him into a cell. Prompto walked just in time to get a glimpse in beyond them. He couldn’t see much, just the side of an arm, chained to a wall – an arm with feathers drawn onto it. The bespectacled man closed the door, but caught sight of Prompto staring, his heart skipped.

The door shut, and Prompto steadied. He had found Gladiolus Amicitia, he was sure of it. He had found Ravus imprisoned with him, in a form.

Prompto continued cleaning, but it wasn’t long before the sounds of pain started. Several times he had to cover his ears and count to ten before he could move again. Gladiolus Amicitia’s voice was low and sharp, and got into this ears no matter what he did.

Several times, he called out for Prince Noctis. Prompto had to hurry away after that.

He wondered what it would be like to have someone care so much about you, that even in the midst of grossest pain they would still be in your mind and on the tip of your tongue. A strange sort of longing bubbled underneath his pity and disgust.

“Nobody has ever called for me. Not really.” He whispered into the vast halls, and not one person heard him. 

Prompto hurried to complete the rest of his tasks, and went to Lady Lunafreya as fast as possible, for she had a plan, and Prompto, no matter his fears, could not let her do it alone.


	2. Whisper for Help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this beastie has already gotten well out of my control. I had initially planned it to be 5 chapters long and I've already written 6 :/ I like publishing chapters as and when I feel confident that nothing in that phase of the story is going to change. I'm a little worried what you will make of the shifts in POV, but this entire tale doesn't really work without it so hopefully it won't be too jarring.

 

Around Gladio, darkness buzzed – a thousand tiny flecks of colour even in absolute blackness. He was covered in cold sweat. A pressure rested on his chest that spoke of muscles knotted and too long spent in the wrong position. Under the burning sensation of cuts exposed to the bite of the air, his skeleton felt frozen, joints locked together. He had no inkling of how long he had been unconscious for. It could have been hours, or even weeks.

There wasn’t a speck of light in the room, but he visualized the space to keep himself grounded. White walls built with breize block and smooth concrete floor. About 4 meters square, lit with three strip lights in a precise line – Ravus’ face snarling at him, the perfect imperial dog with hair so white that he almost blended in with walls. If it weren’t for the hollowness in his face and shadows hugging his eyelids, he would have been a flawless Imperial specimen. The Empire always had preferred those with the look of Solheim.

The damage Ravus had done to him was surprisingly minimal for the situation; other than the broken wrist and fingers, he bore only a few deep flesh wounds and torn fingernails. He doubted it could stay that way long.

Earlier, there had been a rumbling of sorts – not like an earthquake but like a vibration in the atoms themselves. It was familiar; it meant that Noctis was still alive, and still using his magic. Even if he had no clue where the Prince was being held, or what had happened to provoke him, there was still hope left. He just had to find out all he could and get out of here.

Time dragged, but finally the lights overhead blinked on, and Gladio purposefully stared into it to make his eyes adjust faster. By the time Ravus entered, he was ready, face a mask of well controlled blankness. The same interrogator who had set up some contraption at the back of the room yesterday followed him in, silent, poised, and if Gladio could guess, probably quite handy in a fight. He stood with his mirror-shiny leather boots, a shoulder width apart and hands tucked neatly behind his back, white uniform completely crease free.

“Welcome home, baby doll.” Gladio said sarcastically, ignoring the brunette interrogator who moved to stand to his left. Ravus’ eyes lifted dangerously, but otherwise he did not react.

Gladio looked at the man’s sides, eyeing the new holsters that sat at his waist.

“No whip today? Shame, I was beginning to enjoy that.” He drawled languidly. “So what now? Tickle time?”

There was something off about Ravus - something hesitant, even without the provocations. Something had sat wrong, like he was looking at a distorted figure through frosted glass, or a lump moving under the skin.

The brunette against the wall in the immaculate Imperial uniform raised his wrist to look at his watch, and Ravus twitched. 

 _So you’re on a timer then?_ Gladio studied the _other_ man. His glasses seemed like a blockade, couldn’t access more than the barest information from his eyes. He had brown hair. The Empire wouldn’t have liked his type just from aesthetic alone, which made Gladio suspect that he was frighteningly good at his job. He was a fine puppeteer for the Tenebraean Prince, that was certain.

Ravus pulled two mace-like things from the holsters at his waist, both of them comprised of long metal poles with rubber grips, and wire filament encircling buffers at regular intervals. The white haired man approached him, and the maces began to hum excitedly, clacking periodically with electrical charge. He held them like rapiers.

Gladio steadied his back against the brick wall, and when Ravus came just in range he threw his lower body up, a bare foot catching one of the prongs and throwing it back into Ravus’s other arm. Gladio’s foot twitched uncontrollably, static ripping through his muscles, his broken wrist shrieked as it was forced to take his entire weight, enclosed in the cuffs on the walls, His knees, ankles, everything - buckled and juddered.

Ravus roared with pain, and dropped both the batons, arms and and head thrown backwards involuntarily, twitching like he had rigor mortis.

Gladio knocked his head against the wall and grit his teeth, trying to wrestle back control of his lower half before Ravus could recover.

“You—“

“H-Hah.” Gladio regained his footing, just as Ravus ran at him, catching his neck in a chokehold.

“Filth! I didn’t want to hurt you!”

“T-Traitor!” Gladio wheezed, looking over Ravus’ shoulder at the bespectacled man. “Did he stand there like that and watch your sister go through this?”

Ravus ripped his hand away as if he’d been bitten, and Gladio gasped down air like it was gourmet. The Tenebraean Prince looked him in the eyes, half-angry, half-ashamed, but mostly lost.

 _He probably doesn’t know what’s happened to Luna._ Gladio felt a pang of sympathy for him, imagining Noctis in Luna’s stead.

The immaculate man in Imperial uniform looked steadily at Ravus, no expression crossing his features, but Gladio would have said that he was _expectant._ Ravus, shaking, picked up both batons, the humming starting back up again. He seemed to take a moment to check himself, breathing returning to normal.

“We…We are going to ask you questions. When you do not answer, you will be disciplined. If we deem that you are lying, you will be punished.” He said, robotically.

Gladio did not miss the ‘We’, nor did he miss the slight pout of the immaculate man’s lips, and the turn of his attention back to Gladio.

The rods buzzed, and he felt the prickle as one moved mere inches from his skin. He could try his kicking trick again, but he could tell that Ravus would be ready for it this time, and his wrist throbbed in the shackle, pain nearly overtaking him.

“Tell us the location of the Crystal within the citadel.”

Gladio looked up at him defiantly.

“You already know.” The prod met the space above his heart and his world turned to bitter red lightning, chest tight, muscles wringing, eyes rolling back and mouth slack.

Ravus was already on the next question, but Gladio didn’t hear it.

The baton hit his shoulder this time, and his stomach cramped so hard that it felt like he was in fetal position, though his body was stretched along the wall like meat on a butchers’ hook.

“How long will Regis last under the strain of the wall?”

“However l-long it takes.” Gladio ground out, truthfully.

The cattle prod connected at his throat this time. He could smell burning, and his eyes lolled in his head.

“Tell us the last known location of Cor the Immortal.”

“Helping the K-King, where _you_ should be.” The prod connected, and after the ringing stopped, Gladio spat at Ravus.

He opened his eyes long enough to see Ravus’s burning holes into him, but it was a hollow, lonely flame.

Gladio panted but managed a pained smile.

“Noct is alive.”

He didn’t precisely know why he said it, his mind was sludgy, but it felt meaningful. Perhaps it was a self-confirmation. Ravus’ eyes gave him away, just for a moment. A tired, weary and scared look. Something that spoke of just a tiny sliver of hope somewhere down in the depths of a soul who’d otherwise given up.

The other man, the one with the glasses, was staring at him, sharp and calculated.

 _“Lunafreya is alive.”_ Gladio hissed, still not entirely comprehending his own reasoning, just knowing that it felt _right_.

There was a dagger at his throat, a straight, vicious thing, the brunette holding it perfectly against the swell of his jugular, enough to still him.

“Leave.” He commanded. “You are not in control.” Ravus did, slowly, dropping the batons where he stood and trying to appear as though he was still in jurisdiction of his own body. His hands shook as he rushed out the entry, the lick of his coat the last piece of him Gladio could see as he disappeared through the frame. There was a flash of something – blonde hair, not Ravus’ – probably another perfect blonde imperial henchman -  just for the scantest moment before the door slammed shut and the Immaculate man and himself were left, alone and unhinged.

Gladio swallowed deeply, looking into the man’s face.

He was handsome, to be sure. A strong chin, thin lips and elegant eyebrows. Green eyes that were as fierce as they were intelligent.

“So, what do I call you?” he asked, studying the ultra-neat hair and perfectly designed glasses, and trying not to move too much incase the man wasn’t nearly so careful with his knife placement as he appeared. His body thrummed in hurt.

“Your question is irrelevant.”

“Specs, then.” Gladio let a pained smile reach his eyes. The man did not react.

“I have been tasked with extracting information from you. Once that task is done you will be rendered clinically brain dead so our researchers might investigate the effect of the magical link on one’s physiology.”

“All for the glory of the Empire.” Gladio grunted, quietly disturbed. It was too brutal, too matter-of-fact.

“but first, to obtain information from you I intend to extract the lunulae from your fingers, one by one.” It sounded casual, like he was stating his intention to go out shopping.

If Gladio were a lesser man, he would have been scared. Instead, he laughed, ribs rubbing against each other.

“And what other than my fingernails and information do you get out of this gig, Specs? Is it the fancy uniform?”

‘Specs’ seemed to ignore his question entirely, and sharpen his knife, almost lazily.

“Pay packet must be good.” Gladio ventured, pushing the tiny voice of panic rising in his stomach back down. “Do they insure against the Magitek Apocalypse or is getting turned into a robot what does it for you?”

Specs’ grip tightened imperceptibly on his knife. Gladio forged on.

“What happens when you’re too old to work anymore? Forced organ donation? I bet they all look at you round here. You don’t look like Imperial beauty standards.”

His knife stilled.

“It makes no difference in fulfillment of my duties for the Emperor.

“What are you to the emperor then?”

“Essential.” He hissed, the knife nicking the soft skin of Gladio’s ear, suddenly too close and too personal and breathing in the same sterile air.

“Nobody is essential.” He whispered back, daring the Immaculate man to do his worst.

“Then explain why you follow after your mongrel Prince.” His breath caught Gladio’s eyelashes, but he did not flinch and continued to stare him down.

“For the future.”

He said it so simply that Specs seemed to furrow his brow the barest amount, and Gladio saw that perhaps the truth was the right thing to say against this man.

“You have no future.”

 _“Probably not.”_ Gladio agreed, but he’d fought for one. He’d fought for Noctis. “Prince Noctis would die for me. Can you say the same about your Emperor?”

The other man studied him with a melting air of indifference, and after too long trying to detect a falsehood in Gladio’s face, he stepped back out the range of his kick.

“Then your Prince is a fool, but if he will die for you then the Emperor will be happy to know.” Specs adjusted his glasses, and Gladio’s stomach sank like a stone at the implication.

The door opened, and a worker in overalls wheeled a trolley in, a tray of bland mush with a single tiny cup of water on it. The worker wore a fabric mask over his nose and mouth, and saluted Specs when he entered. The Immaculate man did not notice him, instead staring calculatingly at Gladio, which he met with a blasé smile, no matter what he felt.

Specs had seen him waver, just for a moment though, as Gladio had seen the barest fleck of doubt in his eyes in return. The truth flickered in front of them, spectral and daunting like tendrils of gossamer. 

“You won’t understand, but you can do whatever you want to me, just don’t hurt him.” Gladio’s eyes took on the quality of liquid amber, and though Specs saw a smile playing at his lips, there was an immeasurable tightness in the muscles around his face, as if it held back a great flood. Specs was not sure why, but though the word was never uttered, _please_ seemed to hang in the air.

“It won’t be _me_ who hurts him.”

The Immaculate Man who had stood rooted to the spot, seemed to revivify, turning sharply on his heel with a clack.

“Feed him and go.”

 _It won’t be **ME** who hurts him. _It was so familiar, like—

**_I didn’t want to hurt you!_ **

Ravus.

 

Gladio’s eyes closed and his head pitched forward. He hadn’t understood why they were forcing Fleuret into this. It was intended for Noctis. All Gladio had been, was a torture bootcamp for Ravus. They were probably going to force the two Princes against one another, Bloodline of the Lucii versus Bloodline of Fleuret, and see who had the stronger magic. It was all a sick experiment, and he was the warm-up.

The door shut quietly after the man and he did not raise his head for a long time afterwards.

The Orderly who had been left standing and witnessed the odd moment between the two stood there still, looking between the door and the suspended form of the Warrior. Eventually he pushed the trolley next to the prisoner, and fiddled about with a tray on top of it, before lifting a spoon so Gladio could see it. He raised his head and accepted the food without quarrel. If the chance to escape here ever came, he wasn’t going to miss it because he had been too proud to be spoon fed – no, this he would bear willingly.

Especially now he understood something of their plan.

The Orderly seemed fidgety, and would not look at him. He finished his mouthful and waited.

No eye contact had been made, though Gladio had been staring at his face intently, and the last spoonful of unappetizing slush was presented, and eaten, but much to the stranger’s alarm the spoon was not released from between his teeth. He had to look up from his hands then, and blue flecked eyes met amber.

The spoon was released, contemptuously. He thought little of someone who could be part of an army that tortured and murdered all for scraps of power, and couldn’t look their victims in the eye.

He wished his wrists weren’t encapsulated in metal, sunk so far into the walls that even the astrals would have struggled to tear it from its foundation. He needed the feel of his Greatsword in his grip and the easy magic of the crystal at his disposal, but without movement he couldn’t summon from the armiger, and the magic felt buried so far away, where usually it tickled his mind with intimate familiarity. He wanted to chase after the Immaculate man and _make_ him understand what true righteous fury looked like, and he didn’t care if he had to step over this shivery kid on the way, either.

The Orderly had stopped, plainly scared, and Gladio knew that the anger in his eyes had given him away.

The blonde retrieved a medical flask from his pocket and the top of it turned with a shaky twist. The light from within it reflected in his eyes and Gladio knew that whatever was within was magical. It didn’t look elemental, and what it illuminated appeared softer and calm.

Holy magic.

Somehow, incredibly, the worker was healing him. His mind ran through possible reasons why, including the possibility that he would be enduring cycles of torture over and over again in case Ravus needed more time.

The Orderly smashed the vial directly over his heart, and with a shudder, the feeling of a thousand needles stabbing in his veins. The magic was too little – his wrist still throbbed, but the swelling had gone and the worst of the pain at the tips of his nerve endings felt distant and numb.

“Why?”

The Orderly’s mouth didn’t move beneath the mask, but he heard whispers, flighty things that sounded like hushed singing. His eyes moved about the room, for they seemed to be coming from the walls, drawing, wisped and feathered, along the edges of his senses. He couldn’t see where it was coming from.

“Don’t freak out ok?” He finally shushed, voice squeaky in panic.

“What the fuck _was_ that?”

In reply he shoved a bottle of water to Gladio’s lips and made him drink, even though the Warrior watched the blonde man like a hawk all the while. The water tasted fine clean, though he spilt most of it down himself.

“Who are you?” The boy didn’t answer, his eyes flicking to the door and back to Gladio. He seemed like he was about to say something, but then thought better of it and tugged the trolley away, back towards the entry. “Hey! Hey! Answer me!”

But the man pulled out of the door and was gone. The lights dimmed, and Gladio was left in silence and darkness.

* * *

 

It took Ravus and Specs to come back into the bleached room before Gladio noticed that something was different. Ravus looked like he had undergone a private session with a boxer, such was the purpling and swollen bruise that stretched down his temple and hugged his cheek.

A single strand of hair was not brushed into place on the Immaculate man’s forehead, and that was the only giveaway other than a suspicious and cautious air that showed the passing of time from their previous meeting.

Ravus had made a few remarks that lacked the same venom he had shown the Shield previously, and Gladio took no notice. There was the whispering still, and wherever he looked, at Specs, at Ravus, at the ceiling light, the murmur seemed to come from another direction.

“I will have your attention,” Ravus growled as his whip made contact along Gladio’s stomach. He cried out, but there was no pain, even though the wound was fresh and bleeding. Disconcertingly, the mumbling at his ears got louder.

He looked around the room again, and Ravus hissed, Wrist flicking like a snake’s tail. Gladio barely noticed the lash this time, looking at it then looking at his assailant.

“Can you not hear that?” Looking between them, they paused as if they were waiting for the punchline, waiting for him to show pain.

The crack of the whip came down on his skin again and this time he winced, the whip breaking against his shoulder and cheek. The muttering got no louder but started to sound like singing, and this time it felt as though it were directly inside his ear drums. Whatever the orderly had given him, it certainly was doing something.

It occurred to him that the lack of pain meant getting information might be easier. He leveled a look at Ravus. 

“I hear it better now, it sounds like a traitor.” Gladio quipped.

The man stilled, a sort of lifelessness in his face, as if he had drunk from the cup of experience and found that he could stand to drink no more.

“Please just give up, for your own sake.” Gladio did not miss the look of fury that passed over Specs’ face as Ravus pleaded.

“No.” He replied quietly. “No.”

“Can’t you see you’re only getting yourself killed?”

 “I’d rather die fast than rot slow.”

“Enough.” The immaculate man said.

Ravus stepped away from Gladio and put his back to the far wall of the room, his head pitched down. Gladio was reminded of the royal dogs back home who would sit on command, and felt almost sorry for the man across from him. He was trying so hard to resist them.

A white uniform obstructed his view, and the brunette flicked a wrist succinctly. A dagger sat in his grasp whilst his other hand stayed behind his back.

He asked no questions, instead lifting one of Gladio’s broken fingers with the tip of the knife, until his wrist was bent back over the shackle, finger bending further still until his hand seemed to fold over itself the wrong way.

Gladio’s lungs burned, his sternum branded scalding by the time he’d realized he was screaming.

“Where are the current whereabouts of the rest of your clan?”

Gladio heaved down breaths. He remembered that this wasn’t for information – this was to teach Ravus the Empire’s family trade. It didn’t really matter what he said to Specs, but anything Ravus heard that could remind him of his humanity would be a step in the right direction.

“My-My Family…my family are together back home.” He coughed. The whispering was cacophonous now, rising with the pain, dulling it. “You’re smart specs. This is a literal way of getting under my skin. How about I have a go at getting under yours?”

He licked his lips lewdly. The man ignored him and pressed his knife down again.

“FUCK!” Gladio bit out.

But this time the whispers hummed louder than ever. The pain seemed dull, like he was feeling it second-hand, and the lights seemed clearer. Perhaps he had been weeks in this prison and was already beyond crazy.

“You will tell me the layout of the area surrounding your family’s residence.”  

Gladio breathed through his nose and avoided looking at his hand, sure that the sight of it would make him sick, but feeling none of the biting heat that _should_ have been streaming through his fingers. His head swam, and the glaring lights above seemed to pulse, though logically he was aware that they were constant and steady. Specs’ eyes were vivid green. The whispers were clear enough that he could make out individual words. _Pain_. _Moderate. Keep. Strong._

The voice was soft. He remembered a younger version of himself buried under a mountain of pillows, the sweet smell of their laundry softener and the quiet of the house. He’d been trying to escape his duties, but little Iris found him anyway, and pulled him back to reality. He wondered if Luna had done the same for the Prince of Tenebrae.

“There’s a park on one side. Really great swing set there. I used to take Iris there all the time. Always used to be a burger van in summer. The other side is the Atticus house. If you look hard enough there’s a great place to hide down the side wall. Mud piles, too. Used to like throwing them at the kids who would pick on my sister.”

He yearned, and tried to ignore how different the vacuous white walls were to home.

“Sentiment.” The Immaculate man scoffed.

Gladio looked up at him incredulously. Out the corner of his eye, Ravus was curled around himself, shaking.

“I ain’t the only one. I’ll bet there must be something you miss about home too. This can’t be all there is for you.”

It was there barely a moment, maybe in a sharp intake of breath or a twitch of an eyebrow or the flick of an eyelash.

Whatever pity he had felt for Ravus, his pity for the Immaculate man was, with a single look, a hundred fold in comparison.

“This…this is it? All you got is the War and the Military and sucking off the Emperor?” The man’s face remained straight and impassive, but there was something a little too hard in his eyes. “The War killed your family too?”

Ravus looked up and choked on air.

Specs, however, didn’t seem to notice.

“You ask of things you have no business with.” 

“Hilarious, coming from a paid torturer.” He laughed, delirious, dull ache thudding through his mind like slow iron boots.

“Amicitia—don’t push him.” Ravus growled.

Specs clicked his fingers and pointed upwards.

Ravus shuddered and doggedly obeyed, slinking from the room like his coat tails were smoldering. What could produce such a cowering wreck out of what used to be such a proud and strong man? Gladio felt a sense of victory at helping Ravus rebel in small ways, but it was not enough. Now he was alone with Specs he was even more in danger.

“Are we gonna play 20 questions now, handsome? I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

A kneecap found his stomach and he slumped, specs looked like he hadn’t moved as he hung and spluttered.

_Resist…Strong…Soon. Help…Just…Very Soon. Noct…tiiisssss_

“Can…can you hear that?”

Specs did not answer, but as the whispers died off, the pain came roaring back. The immaculate man held the tip of a dagger to his chest and drew a deep line downwards.

“Why are you even still here?” He asked weakly.

“For the Emperor.” His jaw rattled and his eyes rolled in his skull. He hadn’t even seen the punch fly. Specs placed a hand across his neck and drew another line, this time around the edge of his tattoo. The tip of the knife felt unnaturally cold against his screaming nerve-endings. The skin seemed to peel back and wilt in the heat.

“ _Why_?”

“Duty.” The man scoffed and continued his carving, intricate little feather details etched out across Gladio’s skin. As if he were trying to peel off his tattoo to keep as a memento. “What better reason to serve?”

Blood pooled in his bellybutton. The whispering seemed so far away now, barely a faint tickle in his ear. The pain was exquisite.

“…Bet the emperor wouldn’t loose a…wink of sleep over…you.”

The man’s knife point hovered over the eye of the eagle, as if debating.

“What use is your life in comparison to the weight of your country?”

The knife pressed home, and Gladio could only laugh at the irony, before the world swam and tilted over itself.

 ** _Soon_** _._ The whispers promised.

* * *

 

Gladio woke slowly.

Someone was here.

He felt like being alone right now.

The floor was immaculate again, where there should have been blood. He wondered how much the cleaner got paid to do that kind of awful job? Probably nothing.

His brain felt too big for his skull but his hand and his chest didn’t hurt as it should. 

The whispers were back. 

 _Pain…take…below…Lucis…_  

“Uhmm, hello?” That one he was pretty sure wasn’t in his head.

He looked up, immediately regretting opening his eyes fully.

The ‘technician’, the one with the blonde hair who had given him that vial of magic last time was there. 

Another Vial, same magic, same crystal and light and swirling of energy. 

Everything hummed. 

“Look, I don’t know who you are, but whatever that is, it’s making me trip—“

**_Gladiolus?_ **

The vial was broken open and light flowed down his chest like chilled smoke. The orderly looked flustered as he put the vial back into his pocket. He took a step back and though obviously worried, continued to watch both him and the door.

**_‘Gladiolus? You are alive. Noctis is alive. I need your help.’_ **

He looked around the room and then back at the partisan in aversion.

**_‘The man is Prompto. He will take you to Prince Noctis. Trust him. Let him help you.’_ **

“What the fuck? Who...?”

“Lady Luna.” ‘Prompto’ answered. “Please trust me.”

 _"Lady Lunafreya?!"_ Gladio was immediately unsure. He’d supposed her dead for years now. And this person was supposed to help? The Blonde slip of a thing was shaking like a leaf and kept eyeing the door, jumping even when nothing came through. He hung his head to think, to clear his mind.

“How…?” 

The lines of his tattoo were _glowing_. The areas which the Immaculate Man had cut into seeped light where there should have been scab. Noctis had told him once of how his chest had glowed from the inside out when the Queen had healed his back. He remembered the way the magic in the vial had glinted like the magic of the crystal, and glowed like the healing spring. Mixed magiks. Only Lunafreya would be able to pull something like that here.

He immediately looked back up to Prompto.

“Can you get me out?”

Prompto glanced at him, startled, and then fiddled in his pocket for something. It wasn’t a key, but a tiny, rather useless looking crowbar. The blonde began trying to work out a way to fit the metal bar into the handcuff without hurting its inhabitant.

Gladio rolled his eyes and finally looked at his broken hand. Everything about if was at the wrong angle – fingers at reflex angles, but the light emanating from the wounds obscured the worst of the gore.

“Hey, do us a favour and use that thing on this cuff instead?”

Prompto looked at his mangled hand and visibly gagged, but did as he was told.

Gladio instructed him to position the bar at the back of the cuff and pull as hard as possible. The metal strained but held firm, maybe a few millimeters gained in the stretch of the metal.

Prompto labored, but it wasn’t enough.

The door at the far end of the room opened with uniform precision, and Gladio’s stomach dropped.

Specs stood, surprise colouring his face, and then rage obscuring it.

“Look away.”

Prompto started, but again did as he was told, happy to not have to avoid looking at too-crooked fingers. It was a mistake. He immediately spotted the immaculate man and yelped in terror. 

Gladio didn’t let himself think, and with as much force as he could muster, pulled downwards.

His thumb joint caught, and the snap was audible, but his hand just glowed brighter in response. Only a dull ache registered in his fingers.

Prompto backed into the wall and whimpered. Specs’ hand went to his hip.

Gladio reached, one-handed for the power that lay in the air, the little pocket of magic that always hung beside him, and beyond into its crystal veil. His twisted fingers threaded around the handle of his shield, and he pulled it from its hiding place like a handshake of an old friend. It already felt as though it had been too long. He couldn’t grip it properly, blood slicking the handle and thumb joint dislodged.

The gun went off just as the metal materialized on front of Gladio’s face. Prompto for all his cowering was a quick study, and darted behind the bottom of the shield without a pause for thought.

He fiddled with something in his coat, throwing it into the middle of the room and slapping a hand over Gladio’s eyes.

Gunshots rang against metal, and then, even through the fingers, Gladio saw the engulfing light and heat and--- _blinding, pulsing, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, He wanted the hand over his face to move so he could only just see that little bit more--_

It disappeared as fast as it had come.

Prompto freed his eyes and peered around the shield. The orderly deemed it safe enough to leave Gladio’s protection so he let shield dissipate. The room had been turned a light charcoal grey, lines of shadow streaking up the walls, like the after-shadow from a bomb.

The Immaculate man lay, eyes wide open but still breathing, propping the door open.

Gladio looked sharply at Prompto.

“We leave. _Now.”_

The blonde was queasy. “How are you going to—with that hand?” He felt around in his coat and pulled out another vial, this one smaller.

Prompto looked directly at the disjointed thumb, but seemed to have wrestled control of himself, though his breathing was heavy and he kept making strangled noises.

“You gotta put the bones right first.” Gladio growled, before the vial could be broken and the contents wasted. The orderly shut his eyes and seemed to go white, before reaching out, squinting at the shield’s hand as if in pain himself, and arduously positioning the fingers until it looked like a semblance of a hand again. Feeling as though glass coursed through his veins, he watched Prompto break the third vial and his bones creaked in protest.

The fingers that were, even now, at slightly awkward angles righted themselves perfectly, and the thumb clicked back into place with a satisfied pop. Even with the magic it was agony.

Gladio didn’t have time to let it finish, letting tears run themselves out.

“Move.”

“Wait, what?” Prompto said whilst shuffling out of the way despite his questions.

He turned to face the wall, free to do so now only one hand was left manacled, and positioned the sword over the metal, leaning it on the floor. With the rest of his weight he pulled the handle down like a guillotine, the blade whistling through the binding with relish.

He turned, tattoo glowing and sword in hand, to see the orderly agog in some sort of mix of admiration and abject fear.

“…can you teach me how to do that weapon summoning thing?” He asked in earnest.

“If we get out of here and Noct is still alive I’ll let you store a fucking buffet dinner in the armiger. Let’s go." 

Prompto sobered and nodded, opening the door away from Spec’s prone form and motioned for Gladio to follow. He walked, and looked down at his prison guard, and considered for a brief moment, killing him to win them time. His father sprang to mind, words he had once said when Gladio had gotten frustrated at Lucis’ refusal to order a counterstrike against the Nifs – _if we try to win their way, what is the point of winning at all? Who will be left worth saving?_

The knight tugged the interrogator into the room, knocking him on the head once for good luck.

They left the cell, and Prompto locked the door behind them, though he suspected it wouldn’t hold the man inside for long should he wake up. It was too late to regret not killing him now.

Gladio headed toward what looked like the main doors – everything else in the corridor looked like the entrance to cells.

“No!” Said Prompto. “This way, follow me.”

He was led to an electrical cupboard, tucked away down the back, a small crate of canisters rolled to one side and a hole in the floor revealed, dived through and continued down, with much squeezing. Gladio estimated that they managed two stories or so, before the blonde took off again down a hall, quicker than a rabbit. It took Gladio, still being knitted back together with magic, all his effort just to keep up.

Prompto knew every twist and turn in the service corridors, which pipes to hide behind to check that the coast was clear, which rooms could be used to catch your breath and which corners had the weakest surveillance, and would miss an escaped prisoner and a spy walking a little too hurriedly down. If Gladio didn’t know, he would have said that Prompto was a fugitive here too.

It had been a long time since he’d felt hopelessly lost, but relying on a stranger in an iron ocean full of his enemies had a way of making Gladio feel excessively small and hunted.

Despite having headed down initially, Prompto took them up a floor and then into an elevator, which had only blank buttons in uniform rows of five. If you didn’t already know where you were going it would have been impossible to guess. He wasn’t even sure whether they were heading up or down, until Prompto’s voice cut over his thoughts.

“Are you ready? We’re nearly with the Prince.”

It didn’t matter whether up or down, Gladio was prepared. They were headed to trouble. But beyond that was Noctis.

Gladio felt for the armiger and breathed in, sword in hand. The glow from under his skin calmed him.

The service elevator opened, and Prompto crept out, remarkably quiet. He pointed around a corner at the junction between three hallways, and Gladio peered. The service hall was dark and lined with pipes and lagging. This new hall was as pristine white as his cell had been, except this looked like a museum for huge invisible things – row upon row of glass cases, all vacant and sterile. One door at the end sat, too conspicuous by far. It all smelt like a trap, but he knew that he would rather take a presented opportunity and hope for the best.

Magitek troopers stood, eerily still. About 8 in total. There were Cameras too, but too few.

“Can they set off the alarm?”

Prompto bit his lip. “If this works-” He fiddled with something else in the many pockets of his coat, “then no.”

He pulled out some sort of tiny antennae with a flat base and a coil of wire around the top. He attached a press pad to the metal panels on the whitewashed walls. To Gladio the contraption looked cartoonish, but if it worked who was he to complain.

“Tell me when.” His grip tightened on his sword.

Prompto screwed the top of the antennae on tighter and nodded his confirmation worriedly. All the cameras in the hall nodded their heads wearily and fell asleep.

Gladio didn’t wait more than two heartbeats.

Three MT’s went down within a second, the first with a jab that left it sandwiched between a wall and the blade, the next two in the same broad swing.

 _Four._ A sprint down the hall and a great cleaving swipe from head to toe. Bullets began firing, but they hit the halved MT in front of him.

 _Five_. A quick grab and with shield in hand, shards ricocheting everywhere with a sharp ‘ _plink plink plink_ ’, until an MT was clasped around his shield trying to swipe at his eyes. The next moment its head crushed against a screen.

 _Six._ Number five’s corpse thrown in its way, decimated by bullets, Gladio heaved his sword and removed its body from its feet, stamping through its chest on the way past.

 _Seven._ The butt of his sword lodged in its eye socket.

 _Eight._ He rocketed forward, light bursting out of his shin as a stray bullet finally hit home, but his sword arced downwards and with a snap, the neck of the last MT is broken and spitting sparks.

He ushers Prompto out, who has the good sense to pick up a gun and a spare from the dropped MTs.

The Blonde holds an MT’s wrist up to some sort of panel by the door, and both of them hold their breath. Gladio readies for another fight.

The light beeps green, and the white door slides open.

Noct is alone, strung out on some kind of operating table, a chain wound around him, suffocatingly tight. There is glass everywhere, evidence of the fight his Prince put up.

Gladio nearly cried at the sight of him, but keeps his head just long enough.

“Is it safe to go in?”

“I think so.”

The cameras in here are dead too.

He didn’t hesitate - arriving at his Prince’s side was instinctual. Noct’s body was cold and worryingly still. He had to listen to hear a breath at all. There were angry bruises all over his neck and chest. Gladio was reminded for a fleeting moment if King Regis, looking frail and alone.

“We need to go.” Prompto tapped on his arm. “It won’t take them long.”

Gladio heaved his sword and the chains clattered back to the floor. He lifted Noct’s neck gently and unwrapped the metal from his chest, tossing it as far away as he could.

“Noct, time to wake up.”

There was no answer but for Prompto.

“Not now – lets get away from here.”

They scurried back down the corridor, Noctis slung over Gladio’s shoulders as they staggered over the bodies of the MTs. He looked limp and pale, and Gladio can barely believe that he’s seeing Noct’s face again. It somehow made sense that he’d be asleep for their reunion. Prompto led them down the same service corridor to return, but quickly branched off from their original route.

“Do you think you can climb with him?” Prompto gasped.

“Yeah, whatever I gotta do.”

“Luna said you’d say that.” Prompto grinned, and ran, opening a door to let the knight and the sleeping prince through. They were in what looked like a boiler room.

The blonde prized off a plate of metal from the wall, quietly and patiently. The revealed passage was barely enough for a human to squeeze through. He helped lower Noctis off Gladio’s back, and allowed the shield to crawl into the space on his stomach, before helping push the unconscious Prince as Gladio pulled him across to the other side. Gladio heard the metal plate shuffle back into place, and as Prompto emerged he hefted Noctis back up, draping him over one shoulder like a sweater.

They were in a rusty stairwell, as old and neglected as the abandoned cobwebs that lingered there.

“They shut this down because of all the lifts. It’s not at efficient getting MT’s in large numbers up and down stairs.”

“Figures.”

He saw what they meant though – the stairwell was narrow at best, precarious at worst. A huge fan hummed overhead and a pool of water collected on the floor, the drips echoed in the space. Prompto started up the stairs, and Gladio followed. The doors at every floor had been welded shut. Clearly this was an abandoned space that nobody should know exists.

“How did you get to know all this?” Gladio asked, legs burning under Noct’s weight.

“I-I prefer being alone in Gralea.”

“I can sure appreciate that. Can’t say that Specs fella made for good conversation.”

“Might I ask a question?”

Gladio regarded him seriously as they ascended. “Sure.”

“Do you think—uhm…if you get out of here…I could perhaps come with you?”

“If I know Noct, he’ll pretty much insist you do.” Prompto looked at the unconscious Prince slung over Gladio’s shoulder with stars in his eyes. 

“Really?!”

“Yeah, kid, you’ve put your life on the line for a pair of strangers. That takes serious guts.” Gladio panted. “Just so we’re clear, if I think you’re going to get in our way I’ll kill you myself, no matter what the Prince says.”

Prompto fell quiet.

“For now, you have my respect, but I can’t risk him again, you got it?”

“I got it.” 

They both climbed the stairs in silence, until the steps stopped and all that was left was rusted metal dropping off into the void below.

“That’s what you meant about climbing.”

The next flight of stairs were above Gladio’s head by about three feet. It looked still pretty sturdily attached to the wall.

“Hold his highness.” Gladio looped Noct’s arm over Prompto’s shoulders and let him support his weight. The blonde stared at the unconscious face of the prince and looked as though he was hovering somewhere between surprise, adoration and fangirlish wonder.

Gladio leapt for the metal above, launching off the handrail. It took them about ten minutes of hard sweat but eventually, Gladio, Prompto and Noct lay on the next flight of stairs up, and Noctis was the only one not panting.

“I’m kinda jealous y’know.” Prompto breathed.

Gladio couldn’t muster the words, but managed a questioning look. The healing magic was certainly wearing off now and the new bullet wound in his shin was furious.

“The prince has a lot of people that respect him. Even the people who hate him.”

“Yeah… don’t tell him I said this, but I’m glad I’m his shield.”

Prompto looked confused, but grinned anyway.

They got back up, Prompto carrying Noctis’ weight over his shoulder whilst Gladio regained his strength. 

They were near the top of the stairwell. He had learned a healthy respect for elevators, having lost count at thirty floors and guessing that they’d climbed nearly double that. They were nearing the fan at the very top. The stairwell hadn’t looked that tall at the bottom, but looking down now he felt like he was looking into the jaws of Leviathan. 

“Close now. The alarm will definitely have been raised.”

“Yeah.” They were damn lucky that this passage was here.

Prompto eventually started counting the steps, and stopped on the number 62. How he knew when to start counting was a mystery.

Another metal panel that looked solid came loose with a tiny wiggle of Prompto’s hands. The opening this time was bigger, but after they crouched through and shut it again, it looked like a recess in an otherwise quiet and unremarkable office space. The lights weren’t on, but there was a faint glow from the doorway. Gladio could finally hear a high-pitched electrical whine. That was probably the prisoner alarm that mobilized the MT’s. They had to move.

Prompto crept forward as quietly as possible, and Gladio followed suit. Noctis felt heavier than ever.

The halls were utterly deserted, and Prompto shared a quick concerned smile. They traversed three corridors, narrowly hiding from personnel that seemed to be rushing towards the opposite end of the building.

The final hallway held rows of gilded doors. It looked like the Empire had made a go of starting a hotel, if hotels had industrial locks.

Prompto knew exactly which door to head to, and he knocked, a very specific pattern of beats. ‘Asset T02-LFNF’.

There were two knocks in return, and Prompto held his hand up to another panel, before letting himself in.

Gladio surged in, and with great relief, Lady Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, fully grown and beautiful, greeted them at her door.

Before greetings could pass between them, they rushed in and Gladio immediately laid Noctis on the bed, giving himself time to note the state of the Prince’s neck and chest to Luna.

Prompto shut the door, and rushed to Luna’s side as she knelt on the bed and inspected the Prince’s injuries.

“Lady Luna, thank you. Heal him now so we can get out of here.”

“Gladiolus, I’m sorry, we can’t move him yet. It’s so good to see all three of you alive.”

The Shield felt heavy, exhaustion finally getting to him. Every moment they wasted they came closer to being caught.

“They’ve been draining his magic.” Luna concluded, looking at Prompto. “As we suspected.”

The blonde didn’t look like it was something he had thought of, but looked happy to be included in the theory-making anyway.

“Can’t you whisper into his mind too?”

“It wouldn’t wake him up. I can’t replace the variety of magic produced by the crystal, but he will regain it over time. I can’t heal your wounds any more in case I don’t have enough magic left for healing Noctis’.”

“We don’t have time anyway.” Gladio massaged his temples, ignoring the pain in his leg and chest, ever more aware that the relief would soon be gone. “What’s the plan?”

Prompto and Luna looked at each other guiltily. “We didn’t think we would actually manage to break both of you out. I confess, our plan revolved around the concept of the Prince being awake in order to escape.”

Gladio couldn’t even manage a bitter smile. Tiredness crept through him.

“How likely are we to be found here?”

“Unlikely.” Prompto said. “We’re over the opposite end of Gralea now. Despite Lady Luna being here, I think this is one of the last places they would look.”

“How long can we feasibly stay here before they find us?”

“If we’re lucky, until the shifts swap over and a new cleaner is on rotation. Three days time.”

“Wait, you’re a _cleaner?!_ ” Prompto looked guilty. “So what happens if we’re unlucky?”

“Let’s not think about that.” Luna laid a hand on Gladio’s arm and looked at Prompto. Please go back to work. See what you can find out. I will hide the Prince in case of an inspection.”

“Wait, won’t that interrogator recognize you?!” Gladio said, feeling the weight of regret that he didn’t murder that bespectacled asshole when he had the chance. 

The orderly nodded sadly, “That’s kinda the advantage with being a clone, unless they know your designation number, all of us look the same.

Taking a last look at the Prince and bowing to Luna before he went out, Prompto waved them goodbye.

Gladio felt shock settle into his system.

“This is so fucked up.”

Luna nodded.

“At least now we stand a chance of seeing daylight again.”

“How long ‘til he wakes up?”

Luna brushed stray hair from Noct’s face. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

Gladio stared at the wall for longer than he meant to, weariness seeping into his bones.

“Let’s talk later. Where can I get some sleep?”

By the time Luna had healed the worst of Noctis’ injuries and Gladio’s own scrapes, and he had squeezed into the hidden void below the bathtub and been shut back in, his body had no complaints about drifting off to sleep despite the spiders and uncomfortable concrete.

* * *

 

“No, Kenny Crow is an anthropomorphic bird.”

“What’s Han-trop-a-mor-pic?”

Noctis’ laughter came as a welcome wake up call for Gladio. He was stiff all over but couldn’t face moving or talking just yet. He was familiar with muscle ache, but parts of his body hurt that he hadn’t even known possible. He gathered himself, preparing to act resilient in front of the Prince.

“Anthropomorphic is where you give animals human traits to make them more recognizable.”

“Scary!” Prompto whined.

“It’s actually supposed to make them seem friendly.”

“No way! So you’re supposed to like Kenny? Even though you don’t like experiments on people if you’re from Lucis?”

“What? Experiment?”

“You just said he was like half-man, half-crow? There’s no such thing as bird people, so he must be--”

“--Oh, no, he’s not actually real, he’s like a mascot. Kinda like a cartoon?”

The ensuing silence betrayed Prompto’s cluelessness.

Gladio grinned despite himself, and knocked lightly on the bath panel, hand buzzing from being cramped under his chest the whole night. There was a scramble on the other side and a blinding line of light hit Gladio’s eyes as it was lowered. He squinted, shuffling out from under the bath. Prompto looked bright and cheery, and Noctis looked barely alive, but at least happy to see him. The Prince was leant up against the wall, horrible red welts over his neck and skin looking like stretched paper. He felt like crying and laughing simultaneously. 

“Hey.” He said to them both, casually as possible, not wanting to betray his turbulent emotional state and fractured body, and therefore alarm the prince more than was necessary. “You’re awake. What did I miss?”

“I did two cleaning shifts, I got questioned twice but it looks like it’s fine, then I came here and Lady Luna introduced me to His Highne—Noctis. N-Noctis was just telling me about a crow named Kenny whilst Lady Luna gets changed.” Prompto’s hair waggled boyishly as he talked. 

Gladio extracted himself from under the bath, stood and stretched as best he could. Prompto kept asking Noctis questions but the Prince for once was affable and happy to be awake. He’d probably been asleep too long, even for Noctis. He quite clearly wasn’t ready for an all-out dash back to Insomnia. He could barely move and his voice was raspy. Prompto nattered on about being in here in case Luna got a visitor.

“You said something last night – you’re a clone? I thought Imperials only referred to MT’s and experiments by numbers?” Gladio asked. 

The blonde scratched his head sheepishly. “I was a designated fighter unit, except I was deemed defective, so they put me on cleaning duty. Our Operations managers always used to call me Prompto, so I thought that when you became a cleaner that they gave you a name rather than a number. I only realized later after talking to Lady Luna that it was because I was really slow at cleaning and what they were actually saying was “ _get on it, Pronto”,_ as in like, _“do it faster”_. I kinda liked having a name, so Lady Luna just kept calling me Prompto. It’s nothing special, but it’s all I got.” 

Noctis seemed to be a little torn up by the story. “ _Defective?_ But—you…” He gulped and looked at Gladio, perhaps a little lost. “Your name really suits you. Can I call you Prompto too?” 

“Yeah! It’s got a way better ring to it than 1732010.” 

Gladio however, had one more question. “The doors – do they record you entering and exiting?” 

“Yeah, but I worked out you can bypass them with a few magnets. He held up his wrist and showed them a bangle with a few bulky shapes held on with electrical tape. “The chip reader lets you in but the electrical signals are obscured by the magnets so you don’t show up on records.” 

“Colour me impressed.” Gladio said. 

“You really got their whole system figured out?” Noct looked incredulous. “Prompto, thank you, so much. I mean it.” 

The tips of the blonde’s ears flushed red. “Well, this is home, it helps to know it inside out.” Gladio had to wonder what was wrong with the Empire to consider someone like Prompto defective. He clearly had a brilliant mind to be able to jerry-rig machinery in the way he did. The idea of him being substandard was sickening, and he felt immensely glad that he was born in Lucis. Think of what would have become of him had he been a Nif. Would he have been like Prompto? Or perhaps a soldier or interrogator like The Immaculate Man? The possibility was terrifying. And this heartless lump of concrete and metal, home? A fortress of all places, with a rotten core and a despot sitting above them all. 

“This in’t home, Prompto. If you feel like you need to escape your own home, that isn’t where you belong.” 

“Gladio,” Noctis cut in, clearly feeling uncomfortable and trying to change the subject, “how are you feeling?” 

Prompto looked like he was burning to ask questions, but The Shield ignored them and answered the Prince, remembering the weak state he was in. “I’ve been better, but ready to fight my way out on your cue.” 

Noctis seemed to struggle to breathe for a moment. 

“I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.” 

Honestly, Gladio wasn’t sure if he was either, but Noctis needed to feel like they had a chance. “Then we wait. On your word, Your Highness.” 

Prompto looked between the two of them as if trying to understand a great puzzle. 

The only thing that passed between himself and Noctis was trust, but he supposed even that would be an alien concept to Prompto. 

The door opened and Luna stepped in, wishing Gladio a good morning and helping Noctis struggle shakily to his feet. 

They walked him next door and sat him back down on the bed. 

“May I have another look at your neck, My Prince?” 

Noctis nodded calmly but his hands were bunched in the sheets, the barest hint of pink dusting his cheeks.

“You can call me Noctis, Luna.” She smiled lightly but continued her work, magic buzzing between her fingers.

“I’m sorry, it’s just…It’s been so long now. Do you know what I miss most? Hide and Seek, with you and Ravus and mother – it feels an eternity ago.” Her palms glowed and lit her face with angelic light. “Ravus…I am sorry for what he has done. I believe they are manipulating him.”

Gladio nodded. “He’s being played. They’re probably threatening you to keep him in line. I think they were setting him up to hurt you.” He looked at Noctis, tiredly. Luna didn’t seem surprised. “The whole thing is sick. What’s with that Specs guy anyway?”

“Operative Scientia?” Prompto grimaced. “They say his entire town was wiped out by the Lucian army. He’s the only one left. He’s scary”

Noctis regarded the blonde with narrowed eyes. “We’ve never gone out of our way to destroy…what town?”

“Bocca…I think? In Accordo?”

Gladio, Luna and Noctis shared a heavy look of understanding, and Prompto could only watch confusedly.

“Bocca was hit by the Imps 20 years ago. It was wiped out, but we had nothing to do with it.” Noctis said quietly, explaining to Prompto. “There was a military base and an energy plant there. They blew it up so they could invade the rest of Accordo whilst the power was gone.”

“But, doesn’t that mean that Ignis is being lied to?”

Gladio understood many things, but for a fleeting second he not only forgave Specs for all his wrongs, but pitied him. 20 years ago – Operative Ignis Scientia must have been very young – five at the very oldest he would estimate. Too young. Prompto too, seemed too youthful for all this backstabbing and misery.

“We’re all being lied to.” Luna said, quietly.

“We need to get out of here.” Noctis mumbled. He looked paler than ever.

“The longer we stay, the more risk we run.”

“If His Majest---Noctis can’t move on his own, it’s going to make getting out even more difficult.” Prompto said. “The best way to leave will be through the roof, since they’ll be patrolling the lower floors.”

“Then what? How do we skip town?” Noctis asked the cleaner.

“I could…I could steal us a freighter?”

“Too slow.”

“I don’t have access to the fighters! I don’t think I’d have enough time to rewire them either. But if we make everything seem legit we might just get a head start?” Perhaps if I can get us into the cargo pods? I could look up the scheduled shipments that are going to Lucis?”

Gladio lent against the wall and thought. “No. Not Lucis. Too risky and too obvious. We’d be better off circumventing the army altogether.”

“Doesn’t that mean just going further into Imperial territory? There’s only Tenebrae and Accordo.”

“We stand less of a chance of playing right into their hands that way.” Gladio tried the strategy out in his mind like a master at a chessboard. “If we take Luna with us, we would be expected to head straight for Tenebrae or Lucis for protection. If we go to Accordo we’re on our own but less noticeable. It would also appear more difficult for us to get back to Lucis from Accordo, since we wouldn’t have a boat and its locked in by the coast.”

“This is just sounding like reasons we should head in the other direction.”

“No, he’s right Noct. Aldercapt is successful as Emperor because he is a master strategist – if we have any hope of surviving we have to outthink him. Gladio, let’s come up with a plan.”

Noctis couldn’t argue with Luna once her mind was set. They discussed, Noctis taking regular sleeps and Prompto leaving to fulfill his cleaning rota, and quietly investigate the supply run schedule.

Gladio and Noctis had to squeeze in under the bath together at the sign of a room inspection, but Luna was smart, pretending to finish getting changed so as to buy them both more time to hide. By the time Prompto came back, Noctis was fast asleep and looking remarkably better, and Gladio and Luna were still discussing their plans. 

Prompto slept on the floor of the room with them that night, and when his Electronic scheduler told him it was 3 o’clock in the morning with a series of sort beeps, he woke them all up and they began their quiet escape. Prompto led them back through the corridors they had ventured down, and back through the same cubbyhole that led to the abandoned stairwell.

There was moonlight shining through the grate beyond the fan, high up in the ceiling. They were perhaps seven floors from the top, and though Noctis was struggling to keep up with the pace, they were on time and doing well.

Gladio could hear the drops of water, but also something else – something creeping. After a while it stopped, and he was sure he was overtired and his imagination was running away from him.

Gladio had to help the Prince up the stairs whilst limping himself; Luna and Prompto scouted ahead - the Princess had to fight with her dress as she went up the stairs, eventually ripping the bottom of it off in frustration. Gladio assumed that only allowing Luna dresses and robes was a manipulation on Aldercapt’s part as well. To him the woman was a trophy, and whether she sat in a room and rotted, or helped him further his mission, it didn’t matter, as long as she looked perfect doing it.

The top of the stairwell leaked moonlight through like blessed rain, casting long shadows across the sealed off doorframe on their landing. Gladio itched to feel fresh air on his face. Prompto removed a grate and leant it against the wall, using it to push up part of the metal that separated them from the giant fan overhead. The Shield leant Noctis against a wall and lent Prompto his hands, knitting them like a platform for Prompto to step into, and then lifting him up into the space above with great effort. When Prompto was up and situated, Gladio lifted Luna, averting his eyes from the royal knickers as Prompto helped her clamber up safely. Finally, Noctis, who was still weak, sat on his shoulder, and he heaved him until Luna and Prompto could grab his hands and pull him up with them. He was covered in sweat and water from the condensation on the grate, and panting heavily, but finally, looking up at them, he felt something akin to victory burn in his chest.

The noise was there again, this time hurried and concentrated. It was behind him somewhere, closing in. Gladio didn’t give himself time to look, and leapt with what remained of his strength for the trapdoor above. Prompto whimpered in panic and tried, unsuccessfully to help him up, hands slipping over clammy skin. Luna and Noctis were trying too. Gladio had lifted his elbow up into the canopy, pulling his torso through. The footsteps were below, and as he managed to get a knee onto the platform, a hand clasped around his trailing ankle, the whole weight of an extra human pulling him back down. 

He kicked, flailing, until something cold hit him in the stomach. 

The energy left his limbs and as he fell backwards, he was aware of Noctis’ eyes glowing red and hands scrabbling at his chest, trying to keep him from falling. 

He hit the landing and his head met metal with a sickening crack. 

Specs. Ignis Scientia. He stood, about to throw a weapon aimed for the trap door, snarl etched across his face. He only looked at Noctis. 

Gladio kicked with all his might, and the interrogator’s legs fell out from underneath him before he could jump. 

“GO!” Gladio roared, throwing himself at the bespectacled man, sloppily wrestling a dagger from the man’s leading hand and kicking it over the side of the stairs, rolling over him until he was pinioned to the floor. 

“GLADIO!” Noctis shrieked, but Prompto, and Luna yanked him away, a mad scramble towards the roof. Gladio hoped for a moment too long that Prompto knew what he was doing, and a fist hit him in the side of the head, his balance thrown off and his ear ringing with pressure. 

A second fist connected with the area of his abdomen that had run cold the moment Ignis had attacked. The Nif’s hand came away covered in blood, but Gladio didn’t give himself time to think on it. He pressed his knee to Ignis’ chest and threw three punches, all hitting the man below him in the jaw. His glasses cracked, and Gladio drew his arm back, hoping that the man would be knocked out before Noctis could get too far away. 

The catch of a gun clicked, and Gladio saw the tiny vicious revolver in Ignis’ left hand. 

“Now, brute, you will help me catch up to your Prince.” The gun was raised, pointing at Gladio’s head. 

He froze, looking down at the interrogator with venom in his eyes. 

“No.” Gladio said, noticing the trail of blood coming from his stomach that seemed to be staining the pristine white uniform of the man below him. He felt faint and exhausted. It occurred to him rather too late that he’d been stabbed. _Outthink them_ , his mind provided. 

“You’re from Bocca.”

Ignis was about to pull the trigger, but the name of his hometown stopped him. He was about to try to shoot again when Gladio continued. “You know you’re a trophy here, too right? Just like Luna and Ravus?”

 

 

The gun went off, and the stairwell echoed with it.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompto's perspective was undoubtedly the easiest to write from out of the four Chocobros, however I hope I'll have overcome my initial struggles at trying to capture something a little bit more forthright and proud in Gladio. Like Prompto, I've taken certain liberties with his character in this, he's inherently more sarcastic and slightly higher strung - he's always on the defensive because his country and his life have been under attack for years. I tried to keep the core of Gladio's character the same, where Prompto's defining trait in my eyes was 'hopeful', Gladio's was always 'instinctual' whilst I played the game. He can be hotheaded, but he had a protective streak a mile wide and doesn't always think before leaping to action, but everything about him, from his tactics to his intelligence is very natural. 
> 
> Prompto’s clone designation number is his height followed by his birthday X,D I’m so cheap…
> 
> ‘Bocca’ is a small opening at the base of an active volcano in which lava flows. I really felt like Ignis needed to come from somewhere associated with fire, for obvious linguistic reasons<3.
> 
> P.S. Please dear gods let me know what you think! I live for the comments, you guys always make my day<3


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